Third Frontier Commission awards about $11.5 million to Northeast Ohio organizations

Northeast Ohio companies, angel and seed-stage funds, and education institutions were major beneficiaries of a statewide total of $16.35 million the Ohio Third Frontier Commission approved on Thursday, April 14, to, as the organization puts it, “get innovative ideas and products to market.”

In total, Northeast Ohio-based organizations received about $11.5 million. The statewide list of recipients is here.

In the “pre-seed and seed plus” awards category, Northeast Ohio recipients were as follows:

• North Coast Venture Fund L.P. in Mayfield Heights, $3.625 million

• Valley Growth Ventures LLC in Youngstown was awarded $3 million

• Mutual Capital Partners Fund III LP in Westlake, $2.079 million

• North Coast Angel Fund III LLC in Mayfield Heights, $1.65 million.

The Third Frontier says the goal of the pre-seed and seed plus program is “to encourage private investment, creating a strong public/private partnership that accelerates the growth of technology companies in Ohio and creates well-paying jobs.”

In the “commercial acceleration loan fund” category, the sole recipient was a Cleveland company, Complion Inc.

Complion received a $1 million loan to commercialize its cloud-based software, which helps hospitals and medical centers manage documentation related to the Federal Drug Administration clinical trial process.

There were three Northeast Ohio recipients in the “technology validation and startup” awards category:

• The Ureteral Stent Co. of Cleveland was awarded $150,000 to further develop an improved stent for treatment following kidney stones. This technology “allows easier insertion and removal, less irritation to the bladder, and reduced flow of urine back into the kidney,” according to the Third Frontier.

• Case Western Reserve University was awarded two grants, of $50,000 and $49,158, to test and develop technologies including software for computer-aided diagnosis of brain tumors that could potentially eliminate the need for biopsy, and a sterilizing system for the injection ports on catheter tubes that could help prevent catheter-related blood infections.

• The University of Akron was awarded $50,000 to test and validate a smartphone-based medical device that can be used in low-income countries to diagnose cervical cancer.

The funds, which collectively received more than $10 million from the state, “will invest $40M+ in NEO startups in the coming 3 years,” Leach wrote in the email.

Also important, Leach noted, is that the Third Frontier “agreed to support the Entrepreneurial Signature Program (ESP) across the state at current levels of support ($9.5M/year in Northeast Ohio) for the next three calendar years.”

JumpStart “will now be responsible for crafting a proposal for the next three years that will be due in June,” Leach wrote. He added that JumpStart now will need “to begin to focus on raising non-state matching resources needed to secure all of the future state monies which will continue to allow JumpStart and our ESP partners to advance the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Greater Cleveland and across all of Northeast Ohio.”

MORNING ROUNDUP

Business headlines from Crain's Cleveland Business and other Ohio newspapers — delivered FREE to your inbox every morning. Sign up for the Morning Newsletter.